Hearthstone Team Considers Changes To Hearthstone Ranked Mode

If you’re one of the many Blizzard fans that plays Hearthstone, Blizzard’s “World of Warcraft” card game, then it’s likely that you’ve experienced the elation and frustration of the Hearthstone ranked mode. Now, it seems that the Hearthstone team is going to be making changes to the mode in response to player feedback.

According to the feedback given to the Hearthstone team, the Hearthstone ranked mode has a number of flaws: There are too many players in the top ranks (it can even be divided pretty much in half between people over Rank 18 and people below Rank 18), feedback from people that are jostling for the top “Legend” rank near the season’s end aren’t having fun, that the ladder can feel like a grind, and more.

Hearthstone ranked mode basically operates on a system of star collection in increasing amounts. Getting a win gives you a star, unless you win three or more matches in a row which net you an extra star. Since you’re facing a random opponent with each game, you’ll either shoot to the top ranks or continually be smacked down by players that are either good at the game or have very useful gimmick decks (such as mill decks or other such things.)

This sort of annoyance can often make the ladder mode seem unfair and too grindy, but the Hearthstone team is intending to adjust the ladder so that only players with good skills or those with a deck that helps to break the meta get to the higher ranks.

Hearthstone has already experienced a number of changes related to its cards when a number of cards were changed several weeks ago, and the “Whispers of the Old Gods” expansion came along with a patch that divided the game into “Standard” and “Wild” modes, with the first limiting cards that you could use to the last year.